Solaire

Half a million solar panels were installed every day in 2015.
According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), renewable energy, mostly solar and wind, accounted for more than half of all new electric capacity added in the world last year, a 15 percent jump from 2014.

Globally, there is now more renewable power capacity than coal power capacity. Clean energy growth was especially high in China, which was responsible for about 40 percent of all new clean energy capacity. Get this: In China in 2015, two wind turbines were installed every hour. This surge in renewables, according to the IEA, can be attributed to policy changes, lowered costs, and improvements in technology. So renewable energy hit some big milestones last year, but it’s still just the beginning: The IEA — which has been accused of underestimating the growth of renewables — expects 28 percent of electricity to come from renewables by 2021, up from 23 percent today.

We all know the hallmarks of the classic business-themed Christmas movie. A good, well-meaning executive faces some tough business fundamentals as the holiday season approaches. Unexpected events deepen the gloom.
Video: Meet the architect who builds solar homes from recycled materials. In Taos, N.M., recycled tires are the building blocks for a community of radical, off-the-grid homes called “Earthships.”

Meet their architect, Michael Reynolds. He’s the rugged, eccentric star of a seven-minute short film from The Atlantic, directed by Flora Lichtman and Katherine Wells for The Adaptors podcast, which gives us a snapshot of life in these captivating solar homes built from natural and recycled materials. Even though his architectural vision appears to be centered around the idea of sustainability, Reynolds isn’t your typical environmentalist.

North Carolina town bans solar for fear it will “suck up all the energy from the sun”
Is North Carolina the new Florida?

Something odd is going down in the Old North State. Once the relatively blue island in a sea of red, North Carolina underwent a conservative takeover in 2012, which led to the introduction of some embarrassing legislation: There was the motorcycle abortion bill, the bill that made nip slips a felony, the one that banned Sharia law, the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, and the bill that allows guns in bars — because the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a drunk guy with a gun. Plus there are notable residents like the Planned Parenthood shooter, the Olympic Park bomber who hid out in the national forest for five years, and this guy, who insists that Sasquatch has 12 fingers and beaaaauutiful hair. Things have gotten so bad there that William Saletan recently wrote in the Slate, “Forget Syria.

L'ombrage des vignes par l'énergie solaire va réduire le haut degré alcoolique du vin catalan. India and France launch a solar alliance — and a book of environmental quotes. PARIS, France — On the first day of the Paris Climate Conference, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President François Hollande made a big joint announcement: They have cowritten the preface to a 175-page collection of inspirational green quotes.

Entitled Ecology of Our Worlds: Views on Climate and the Environment, the book contains meditative nuggets from the likes of Tolstoy, Confucius, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The leaders also launched Grammy winner Ricky Kej’s new album of “world music for environmental consciousness.”
Cyberaction La presqu'île de Crozon revendique sa centrale solaire. Solar is mostly for the wealthy. Here’s how Obama plans to change that.

This story is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Rooftop solar power systems cost a lot less these days than they did five or 10 years ago, and with many solar companies now offering leases and loans, it’s safe to say that going solar is more affordable than ever before. That trend goes a long way to explaining why solar, while still making up less than 1 percent of the total U.S. energy mix, is the fastest-growing power source in the country.

But access to solar power is still overwhelmingly skewed toward affluent households. Of the roughly 645,000 homes and business with rooftop solar panels in the U.S., less than 5 percent are households earning less than $40,000, according to a report earlier this year from the George Washington University Solar Institute. The typical solar home is 34 percent larger than the typical non-solar home, according to energy software provider Opower.

President Barack Obama wants to change that.
China built a giant solar field in a desert. Deserts don’t exactly have the best rep for me.

They inspire images of horrific sunburns and dying of thirst – and at best, some sweet cacti, grand sandcastle visions, or a certain noseless Egyptian monument. But the ante has officially been upped: Travel to Dunhuang in northwestern China’s Gansu province and you’ll stumble across a massive field of solar panels in the Gobi Desert. The province has been building up the field since 2009. But from 2012 to March 2015, the construction project exploded in size and “the area occupied by the photovoltaic panels has expanded threefold,” iO9 reports.
Irrigation solaire au goutte à goutte : une technique gratuite à la portée de tous - ecoloPop.

On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a massive new investment by the company in solar energy: an $850 million installation that will cover 1,300 acres in Monterey County, Calif. Apple is partnering with First Solar — the nation’s biggest utility-scale installer — on the project, which will produce enough power to supply 60,000 California homes, Cook said. According to a press release from First Solar, Apple will receive 130 megawatts from the project under a 25-year deal, which the release describes as the largest such agreement ever.

Cook called it Apple’s “biggest, boldest and most ambitious” energy project to date, designed to offset the electricity needs of Apple’s new campus, the futuristic circular building designed by Norman Foster, and all of Apple’s California retail stores.
Observez le pouvoir hallucinant d'une loupe géante fabriquée avec un écran télé. SolaRoad, la première piste cyclable solaire capable de produire de l'électricité.

These giant singing flowers are also creating solar power. Une PME française vend au Japon une centrale solaire flottante. Peru’s poorest will soon have solar power. Solar is for rich people — or so it often seems. There’s the cost of the panels themselves (although they’re slowly becoming more affordable) and the fact that getting your landlord to plop solar panels atop your apartment building might be a lost cause (unless you live in these Seattle apartments). Community solar is catching on, but solar is still out of reach for most of us. Unless you live in Peru. The country just launched The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program, an initiative to get solar to 2 million of the country’s poorest residents: The first phase of the program, called “The National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program” was initiated on Monday (July 8) in the Contumaza province, where 1,601 solar panels were installed.

China plans a major solar spree. A solar-panel manufacturing blitz by Chinese companies has left a glut in the market, driving down prices for photovoltaic systems. And China thinks that’s a pretty good excuse to throw itself a huge solar party. The government has announced plans to add 10 gigawatts of solar capacity each year for three years. That would take advantage of cheap prices and help the country’s manufacturers move product in a difficult market.
Reportage sur le forum scientifique du 18 Mai 2013 à LAAYOUNE.

California town of Sebastopol will require solar panels on all new homes. Vineyards won’t be the only things flourishing when the sun shines on the fertile city of Sebastopol, Calif., in Sonoma wine country. The liberal stronghold of fewer than 8,000 residents this week became California’s second city to require that new homes be outfitted with panels to produce solar energy. A vote by the City Council on Tuesday evening came less than two months after a similar program was approved in Lancaster, Calif., a conservative desert city with 150,000 residents nearly 400 miles away. From the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Just stick this portable outlet to your window to start using solar power. Solar-Powered ‘Window Socket’ Lets You Charge Devices At Windows.